


May Fortune Favor the Foolish

by w3djyt



Category: Green Lantern - All Media Types, Star Trek/Green Lantern: The Spectrum War
Genre: Canon-Typical Nonsense, Fluff, M/M, Pillow Talk, Sass
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 11:50:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7843819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/w3djyt/pseuds/w3djyt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Contrary to popular belief, post-apocalyptic life is surprisingly peaceful.</p>
<p>[ Sinestro never was very good at ignoring Hal Jordan and Hal, well, he's always been too stubborn to let go. ]</p>
            </blockquote>





	May Fortune Favor the Foolish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AuroraExecution](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraExecution/gifts).



 

* * *

 

“I do not think it wise, Captain-”

“Is _that_ all?”

Spock arches an eyebrow at him as they enter the turbolift and Jim just grins back unrepentantly.

“If I am to go by our previous conversations, I can only assume you to have already chosen a course of action in spite of your declaration to ‘sleep on it’.”

“Aw, see? You _do_ know me,” Kirk teases with a wink.

The eyebrow drops. Spock’s expression remains as neutral as ever, but somehow the feeling of thunderous disapproval comes across regardless.

“Look, we’ve got approximately _one_ guy that can do or convince that one of anything,” Jim eventually huffs after the lift starts moving and the silences stretches too long for him to tolerate it.

“Lantern Jordan.”

A sharp nod.

“Am I to conclude, then, that your decision is actually one of inaction, Captain?”

“Very astute, Mr. Spock.”

The doors open.

 

* * *

 

They hover over the Enterprise, hardly more than specks of light in the vastness of space and more than capable of easily keeping pace with the vessel.

“…  and once our rings are done, _we’re_ done.” Hal Jordan deals in absolutes, but it’s usually that something can absolutely be done, not this… certainty of negative outcome.

“Perhaps _your_ rings,” Sinestro answers, and it’s almost offhand, almost a challenge. For all he is yellow, Sinestro has always existed in the grey. He’s comfortable there. After so long, it’s difficult being comfortable anywhere else.

“Oh, right, because _you_ have a battery stuck up your ass,” Jordan huffs, disbelieving.

“I built a Corps once, Jordan, it will not be difficult to do so again.”

Hal looks at him like he can’t decide whether to be incredulous or angry. It’s not an unfamiliar look. “You _recruited_ a Corps.”

Sinestro raises an eyebrow. “Is that what you think happened?”

Jordan’s expression is droll. Perhaps smug. “Please. I know what happened. I know how many times you lost control. I know you had the Weaponers.”

“They didn’t know what they had,” Sinestro scoffs, waving them and the concept of their technology, the yellow substance, everything he learned and manipulated to his advantage off to nothing. Because it is nothing. That universe is gone. He is the only knowledge that remains. He can feel the fear it stirs, and smirks.

“Neither did you.”

“Then tell me, Jordan, how is it they had no rings and no lanterns and no _weapons_ of yellow light before me?”

Hal Jordan doesn’t think in complexity. It’s always the thousand foot view where everything condenses and simplifies. Then he can act. So he falls silent and disregards the nascent fear implication brings to mind. He’s older and it makes him less impulsive, which is both helpful and infuriating because Sinestro hates admitting how much he enjoyed Hal as a rookie lantern. How beautiful and ridiculous and boundless Jordan had been when they were new to each other and there was a universe worth saving. The stubbornness is still there, but infinitely more refined.

It twists fear to hope, somehow, and Thaal can’t shake the pride it gives him. Has stopped trying.

 

* * *

 

Sinestro hasn’t entirely figured out why he’s still here at all. It probably has something to do with Hal Jordan. (It has everything to do with Hal Jordan. It always does.) No one else seems to understand that, thankfully, say for some disconcertingly discerning looks from the second in command. Vulcans are supposedly only _touch_ telepaths and Sinestro knows he has his ridiculously well maintained shields even without his ring and there is no way for the man to be sensing anything from him, but the occasional glances keep him at a distance regardless.

Spock seems to, at the very least, respect the danger he brings, but it doesn’t make the Vulcan any less likely to watch him – out of the corner of his eye, over a PADD, across the room.

_Those_ looks, at least, he knows how to deal with. The sort of protective, evaluating stares that should be more common from the Chief of Security than the lead Science Officer, but then, Sinestro knows there is a personal protectiveness there. If he had not witnessed the near end of this universe and what had to happen to save it, he would think it simply cold and calculating.

It's almost infuriating how difficult it is to sense anything out of these Vulcans. And so very few of them to test on that the challenge gives him something to focus on at least. There are other species of course, and he finds them interesting challenges in their own ways, but it’s humans he usually ends up coming back to. Well, one human in particular. Some things even the end of the universe cannot change, it seems.

And really, he can’t find himself wanting any truly permanent change that takes him too far from Hal Jordan for long.

So when the man shows up while he’s resetting something in their host’s main deflector dish, he doesn’t even pause in the careful application of yellow light. He is content with the companionship alone. Hal watches for a moment. It’s something else that’s happened over the years: Hal Jordan learned the benefit of silence. Whoever would have expected?

Sinestro doesn’t find himself that surprised. For all the energy that bursts out of Jordan’s every seam, the man is far more thoughtful than most people give him credit for. He doesn’t like letting tension go unattended, perhaps, but that doesn’t mean he’s incapable of settling. The man lazes around in bed and sprawls out on beaches and rocks like some sort of lizard given half a chance; perfectly content to soak up warmth and attention whether from a lover or a star.

Given the chance, he’s sure Hal would find a way to combine the two.

“You think this will actually work?” Jordan finally asks. In a void, it should be breaking the silence, but their rings have filtered the sounds of engines and stars and planets for so long that the constant white noise of space is one of the few constants in their lives.

“No,” he simply states, making another adjustment.

Both of Hal’s eyebrows go up. It’s interesting to watch now that he’s abandoned the mask – only took the end of their universe and several months for the habit to drop. “So then-”

“I assume their First Officer will have sorted it out by the time we get back,” Sinestro offers with a shrug, pulling off another piece of metal with a thin sheen of yellow light and immediately filling the space before a forcefield can interfere with his work.

Green light catches the piece of metal and Jordan floats closer, but doesn’t interrupt. “So you’re just-”

“Making the changes they would have eventually made themselves.”

“And, what, throwing in a tracking device for kicks?”

Sinestro snorts derisively and yanks out another piece of hardware, melding his light deeper into the wiring until he finds what he’s been looking for and drags out a piece of … some stranger metal than they have so far stumbled across in this universe. Hal drifts closer: curious in spite of himself. The two pieces of the Enterprise’s forward deflector follow, outlined in green. Sinestro catches the new device in his hand, looking it over thoughtfully as his construct splinters into smaller tools to manipulate the affected sensors.

“I am hardly the person they should be concerned about tracking them,” he idly comments and passes the device over to Hal’s curiosity.

Hal frowns at it. “I haven’t seen anything like this before.”

“Shocking.”

Hal rolls his eyes. “I mean, it’s not Starfleet issue, and it’s not matching any known tech either.”

Sinestro raises an eyebrow at him.

“What?”

“And whose contribution was that?”

“What, am I not allowed to update the database myself now?”

“I am merely surprised you bothered. What would your fellow lanterns think?”

“Funny.”

“I am being serious, Jordan. If they suspect you to be possessed or in an otherwise altered state you know it is my door they will be banging down first. It’s only prudent to be prepared.”

“Yeah well, someone once told me that it’s important to take stock of these things.” Hal floats the shielding and outer walls back into place as the yellow light recedes, sealing the metal into place like new. “And anyway, it’s not like we have a central battery anymore.”

A prideful smirk curls the corners of Thaal’s lips, in spite of himself. “You could.” It’s not so terrifying of a thought anymore – that the Green Lantern Corps might gain in power again. They may still be the most numerous Corps in this universe, but Fear itself is far moreso and Hal Jordan…. Well, Hal has never stopped being his. Not really.

 

* * *

 

Carol visits.

He doesn’t see Hal for two days.

He spends one of them buried in the ruins of an old civilization on a nearby planet.

It’s refreshing.

 

* * *

 

“It’s weird,” Hal announces as he stretches, taking up the entirety of a Starfleet issued bed. They have long since abandoned separate rooms, but joined beds in the process. There is no need to relive that particular struggle of their early acquaintance again.

“Weird,” Sinestro repeats and brushes a hand over Hal’s hip. It’s been years since they have had so much time to themselves. He feels his edges dulling. He can’t find it in himself to be upset.

“Everything they talk about – everything I remember about Earth. It happened two hundred years ago or more. They had the music, the movies, hell even a lot of the same history – _Shakespeare_.” He rolls slightly, curling into Thaal and resting his head against Sinestro’s shoulder. “But nothing _important_. It’s like… like they never had any heroes.”

“I am certain there have been plenty of beings for this Federation to idolize,” Sinestro sighs. He doesn’t suffer it. Jordan is calm and contemplative and warm against him. His fingers slide through brown hair, affectionate, and he allows himself to indulge in the moment. There is no war being fought and no need to avoid the contact or pretend he is not enjoying himself.

Sinestro has lost many things in his life and not so long ago Hal was among them, but now… now he feels the twist of betrayal and anger and hurt uncoil from his heart. It is a slow thing for all the loss they have suffered still so recently and neither of them fully prepared to manage the fallout of losing one’s entire _universe_. Of failing to save it as they had so many times previously. As neither of them truly expected they ever would. And yet he finds himself content, for now, to dwell on what he has left. On the one thing returned to him.

“… What did you find?”

The question draws Sinestro out of his quiet contemplation and he notices Hal has nuzzled his way up against his neck, lips brushing there with his question. He smiles and if it’s a tad softer than he’s been in recent years, well, he can’t really be blamed. It’s good having Jordan with him again. Even if it reminds him of all the people left behind. His past has been burned away before. He has been hollowed out before. His emotions, his memories, his life manipulated, used against him, incinerated for power and twisted for leverage.

Before, he was desperate. When they first arrived, shell-shocked from the loss, tumbling through an unknown void, feeling the distinct and obvious _tug_ of resonance in their rings. He’d tried explaining it once after the second war when that captain and his Vulcan saved the universe alongside them - knowing nothing of anything beyond their tiny quadrant of a single galaxy. Jordan had not felt the same. Neither, it seemed did most of those past his half of the emotional spectrum. Yet Rage and Avarice and Fear… These things, it seemed, were far more aggressive in their flight and desperation.

It healed enough wounds, explaining it.

Then Jordan remained at his side and that was enough. To stay at first. To aid as needed. To decompress and reorient. The petty squabbles of a single galaxy were no great threat. There was no pressure. Even when he had taken on Parallax in their first bout with Necron-then-Volthoom and he had made peace with death he had not felt such a release of pressure. There was no one left to save, to defend, to order and this universe… yes it would need it, eventually. They all needed protection eventually, but for now… for now… for _once_ he had a moment to catch his breath and … it was nice.

“A planet,” he finally answers, so long after the question was asked that he can physically feel Hal dragging his attention back. Jordan shifts against him, alert yet still languid, able to read Sinestro’s body much better than any words that pass between them. “They don’t call it Korugar, and there is no war. Hasn’t been for centuries. No intergalactic visitors either. But it is the same. Their language is... very similar. I could walk among them unnoticed. The star is older. Two Earth centuries would not be far off. It seems a universal time difference.”

Hal shifts again, sliding a hand down his arm and idly lacing their fingers together. It’s a gesture he hasn’t made since they last laid content together, pondering a future where they remained side by side. Sinestro twists his fingers against Hal’s in return, gaze lidded and distant as he simply allowed himself to idle.

“We should fly out together,” Hal eventually murmurs, half into Thaal’s skin.

“Perhaps.”


End file.
